Waldo wild buckwheat

Eriogonum pendulum var. confertum S. Stokes

Shrubs, erect or slightly spreading, not scapose, 2-5 × 2-8 dm, densely tomentose, tannish. Stems mostly erect, without persistent leaf bases, up to 1/ 2 height or more of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect, stout, solid, not fistulose, 2-4 dm, tomentose. Leaves 1 per node and sheathing up stems or fasciculate at tips of basal branches; petiole 0.1-0.5(-1) cm, tomentose; blade oblanceolate to narrowly oblong, (1.5-)2-4(-5) × 1-2.5(-3) cm, densely white-tomentose abaxially, floccose adaxially, margins plane. Inflorescences cymose, 15-30(-40) × 15-40 cm; branches dichotomous, tomentose; bracts 3, semileaflike, narrowly oblanceolate, 3-7 × 1-3 mm. Peduncles absent or erect, slender, (1-)3-10 cm, tomentose. Involucres 1 per node, turbinate-campanulate, 3.5-5 × 2.5-4 mm, tomentose; teeth 5-8, erect, 0.4-0.8 mm. Flowers 3-6(-7) mm; perianth white, densely villous abaxially; tepals connate proximal 3, monomorphic, narrowly oblong; stamens exserted, 3-7 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes brown, 3-5 mm, villous.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Sandy to gravelly flats and slopes, sagebrush communities, oak and montane conifer woodlands; 200-800 m; Calif., Oreg.

Eriogonum pendulum is a rare to locally uncommon shrub in the O'Brien-Waldo area of Josephine County, Oregon, and more common in the Siskiyou Mountains of Del Norte County, California, as far south as Gasquet.